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Brandon Jones believed he had at least top-five car in the NASCAR XFINITY Series Chase opener Saturday at Kentucky Speedway. Unfortunately, he got collected in a wreck involving cars piloted by two drivers not in the driver’s Chase – the No. 88 and No. 42 Chevrolets driven by Josh Berry and Justin Marks, respectively.
As a result of the wreck, Jones finished 26th. He now sits 11th on the Chase Grid, 15 points behind Blake Koch on the cutoff line, heading into the penultimate race of the Round of 12 – Saturday’s Drive Sober 200 at Dover International Speedway at 3 pm. ET on NBCSN.
“We’re not too far out here,” Jones said of his Chase advancement chances. “We did get into an incident at Kentucky that got us into kind of a hole for the Dover race. We’ll see how everything plays out. I think we’re going to be alright here, maybe top five, top 10 and advance to the next round (after Charlotte). I think we’re not too far out and we can still come out of this.”
Jones finished 25th in his lone NASCAR XFINITY Series start at Dover earlier this season, but has finished fourth, eighth and 20th in three NASCAR Camping World Truck Series runs at the Monster Mile.
“Dover is probably one of the tracks I’ve been to most on the schedule with the (NASCAR) K&N (Pro Series East) cars and the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series,” Jones said. “You learn something new every time you come back to a race track, but obviously, the more you go to a race track the more you do know about it. I think unloading we’ll be really fast off the truck. I won’t have to take too much time getting back on the track and learning everything, so that’s going to be in our favor for sure.”
Despite his deficit with two races left until the Chase field shrinks from 12 to eight, Jones remains composed.
“I think if you start freaking yourself out too much, you’re going to get a little sweaty on the race track and start worrying a little too much about where you’re at when there’s nothing to worry about,” he said. “My guys will get us right where we need to be and if it wasn’t for that little incident (at Kentucky), we’d be sitting really, really well. We’re just going to do the same thing we’ve been doing all year long, trying to get ourselves in the top five, and we’ll be just fine for that next round.”